Time for fuel cell / hydrogen car?

Hades said:
I have no current intention of buying an electric or hydrogen car. But I have always wondered where the average person is supposed to plug in their car for charging overnight.

Live in a flat with dedicated parking? It wont yet have a charging point.

Live in a flat with no dedicated parking? You're screwed.

Live in a house on a normal street with no off street parking? You're screwed unless you can leave your charging cable laying across the pavement all night - assuming you manage to park outside your house. Also how the hell is someone in a wheelchair supposed to get down the pavement if everyone has charging cables dragged across it?

Own several cars? E.g. a main car and then your kids grow up and want one? Good luck with that, wherever you live.

We obviously need to move away from ICE and EV is the best solution currently available. But it's going to need a huge change to charging infrastructure. It's not a simple matter of just plugging it in overnight for most people. While hydrogen has just as many challenges we should still be looking at it to see whether it would be better longer term.
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Destination charging and workplace charging are great solutions.

I live in a flat and have no charging at home, but I have workplace charging, when COVID isn't a thing the local pubs, shopping centres all have charging infrastructure not much more expensive than charging at home. I can get a 20-80% charge in about 45/50 minutes.

In fact I took 41.7kWh in 50 minutes for £6.26
 
Hyburnate said:
Destination charging and workplace charging are great solutions.

I live in a flat and have no charging at home, but I have workplace charging, when COVID isn't a thing the local pubs, shopping centres all have charging infrastructure not much more expensive than charging at home. I can get a 20-80% charge in about 45/50 minutes.

In fact I took 41.7kWh in 50 minutes for £6.26
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Which is great while hardly anyone uses EV. Imagine if 50% of cars on the road were EV then you would struggle to find an unused charging point.
 
Hades said:
Which is great while hardly anyone uses EV. Imagine if 50% of cars on the road were EV then you would struggle to find an unused charging point.
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I assure you I wouldn't. I may live in a better area but I have about 250 in a 30minute radius from where I live.

Oh, that's also from a single vendor...

Destination charging can scale up pretty quickly, that will remove many of the issues. Rapid chargers are exactly that, you don't sit on them for hours.
 
Hyburnate said:
I assure you I wouldn't. I may live in a better area but I have about 250 in a 30minute radius from where I live.

Oh, that's also from a single vendor...
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Will that 250 number scale up exponentially as more people buy EV? How many cars are in that 30 min radius? Tens of thousands? What if they all converted to EV?
 
Hyburnate said:
I assure you I wouldn't. I may live in a better area but I have about 250 in a 30minute radius from where I live.

Oh, that's also from a single vendor...
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And how many pump stations do you have in a 30 minute radius from you? I bet it's in the many thousands with the added benefit of only taking 3 minutes to use. Car population of a 30 minute radius must be in the hundred thousands easily.
 
Hades said:
Will that 250 number scale up exponentially as more people buy EV? How many cars are in that 30 min radius? Tens of thousands? What if they all converted to EV?
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I've edited my post to cover that point, yes it will scale.

Osprey are working with Marstons, putting out a number of chargers at their pubs and restaurants - https://www.zap-map.com/osprey-is-the-fastest-growing-independent-charging-network-in-2020/

InstaVolt are placing chargers at McDonalds around the country - rapid chargers too so when you're having your fast food you get a rapid charge - https://instavolt.co.uk/mcdonalds-p...eliver-rapid-charging-network-at-drive-thrus/

The key point is though, you don't wait until you're empty, you top up little and often where you can with destination charging. Workplace grants are about to get companies installing chargers at the work-place.

e;

@adam cool dude

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I got to work yesterday with 10% charge, I left with 80%. I do not miss having to wait at petrol stations in the cold that's for sure.
 
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Hades said:
I have no current intention of buying an electric or hydrogen car. But I have always wondered where the average person is supposed to plug in their car for charging overnight.

Live in a flat with dedicated parking? It wont yet have a charging point.

Live in a flat with no dedicated parking? You're screwed.

Live in a house on a normal street with no off street parking? You're screwed unless you can leave your charging cable laying across the pavement all night - assuming you manage to park outside your house. Also how the hell is someone in a wheelchair supposed to get down the pavement if everyone has charging cables dragged across it?

Own several cars? E.g. a main car and then your kids grow up and want one? Good luck with that, wherever you live.

We obviously need to move away from ICE and EV is the best solution currently available. But it's going to need a huge change to charging infrastructure. It's not a simple matter of just plugging it in overnight for most people. While hydrogen has just as many challenges we should still be looking at it to see whether it would be better longer term.

But I think that the solution is going to be automated cars which you call up and hire like an uber. Personal vehicle ownership will be a thing of the past. The self driving taxis will charge overnight and you just summon one to your house when you need it.

Johnny Cab anyone?
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No need for hate :)
The EV infrastructure is in it's early phase. Solutions for all of the above will come..... but not over night :)


Hades said:
Which is great while hardly anyone uses EV. Imagine if 50% of cars on the road were EV then you would struggle to find an unused charging point.
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The installations of EV charging points hasn't stopped - it's ramping up!
 
Jonnycoupe said:
For most normal people the even need for using a rapid away from home is a very rare event.
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Oh, absolutely. What I really meant by that was as charging infrastructure continues to improve it should help shift people from having the "Must do 400 miles on a charge" mentality that seems to be the barrier for some people. When someone knows they can just charge on route, with minimal delay, without really having to give it a second thought I'm sure that even sub 250 mile ranges suddenly appear perfectly adequate for all circumstances.
 
It’s happening so doesn’t really matter the barriers we think we are discussing here. The date might move, the full ban might not exist BUT market share will continue to grow and our towns will see the benefit of that.

The real danger for public range addition might well be fuel stations numbers reducing and let’s be really transparent on that. We aren’t going to see fuel stations popping up on your drive.

Interesting period ahead. The flat issues is likely a problem for 2040 based on typical buying profiles across the UK.
 
Nasher said:
You will still end up struggling to find one in public places with the amount of cars on the road.
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People once said :
  • The growth of horse transport is so much that in 50 years time London will be 9ft under manure.(Headline in The Times, 1894) [Fuel cars arrived and this issue never arrived].
  • Shop outlets won't be able to meet demand, as early car adopters queue to buy their tins of fuel [Fuel stations were built and we are where we are now]
 
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We've got a bunch of charging points at work just sitting largely unused at the minute. So there's infrastructure there right now than can be used by some, and it won't even show on maps.
 
SDK^ said:
People once said :
  • The growth of horse transport is so much that in 50 years time London will be 9ft under manure.(Headline in The Times, 1894) [Fuel cars arrived and this issue never arrived].
  • Shop outlets won't be able to meet demand, as early car adopters queue to buy their tins of fuel [Fuel stations were built and we are where we are now]
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We still get queues at petrol stations and it only takes minutes to fill up. Wait for the queues in busy areas when you have a few 100 people wanting to use 50 charging points.
 
Nasher said:
We still get queues at petrol stations and it only takes minutes to fill up. Wait for the queues in busy areas when you have a few 100 people wanting to use 50 charging points.
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The difference is ICE drivers don't have a petrol station at home or work.
If you use Tesla an example - those are the current biggest selling EV's on the road and you don't see many (if any) queues to use those public chargers.

Once the infrastructure starts gaining momentum there will be plenty of options for everyone. There are already some cities with chargers built into lamp posts for over night charging, kerb chargers, large charging stations are in development, Shell & BP are ramping up their forecourt and wider charging network. It's not difficult to imagine kerb chargers along all housing/street areas.
 
maybe time to recycle this dedicated hydrogen thread - and have a separate sand-pit for hydrogen and electric proponents,
rather than periodic skirmishes in the ev thread.
 
SDK^ said:
Looks like the transport industry is pushing back on hydrogen as a fuel.
Scania is pulling the plug on its fuel cell trucks because they are too inefficient and expensive, compared to battery-powered vehicles.

https://www.rechargenews.com/transi...out-h2-for-long-distance-transport/2-1-951345
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That is like comparing cancer to radiation poisoning. Both are equally as bad as each other. The range requirements for a HGV are miles off at the moment for EV and the cost per mile is just unprofitable for hydrogen. Especially for artics and long haul.

HGV's will be Dino juice for a while yet just like Jets. The technology is simply just not there.

I did 350 miles the other day and that is for little old blighty. Not a single stop in a service station as I have to plan my breaks around deliveries and drivers hours so had no where to charge if such an infrastructure even existed to facilitate HGV charging.
 
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